Traditionally, computer executable programs or applications stored and retrieved data using a format or scheme tailored to suit the needs of the particular program. However, when operating a plurality of programs substantially simultaneously or in concert, the plurality of different storage formats and schemes may prove difficult.
Frequently, the sharing of data between applications was accomplished via format translators or “wrapper scripts”. In the case of format translators, a program or portion of a program was responsible for reading data in an alien or foreign format and translating the data into a format the reading program could interpret. Likewise, “wrapper” scripts or programs included third-party programs that translated one data storage format, generated by a first program, into another format that a second program could read. Occasionally, such data format translation was also applied to the act of data storage.
In a heterogeneous computing environment, data storage complexity level can be different for each application. In the case in which the data stored is configuration data, some configurations might include security relevant data such as user and password information for several systems. In addition, the structure of some configurations might change in time (e.g., as the application is upgraded, etc.). Hence the data formats cannot be always fixed and fully specified in advance at for translation applications.
In addition, for complex systems involving a large amount of data, reports or other data manipulation activities are often performed on the stored data. Frequently, these data manipulation activities are often dependent upon configuration data or underlying data values (e.g., user and password information, etc.). In such a system when the underlying configuration data is changed the results of the activities may become invalid or the activity may no longer executable. If the system is not trivially simple, a user, system, or program may not be aware that an underlying data value has been updated or changed.